


But, Oh, My Friends

by jenni3penny



Category: The West Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 14:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19021534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: Updated and cross-posted from my LJ fic journal. Written ages ago for an old friend, Emily. "Language is their significant other."





	But, Oh, My Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raedbard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedbard/gifts).



Language is their significant other.

They use it as a password (primeval, _always_ ) to judge emotional barriers or outstretched hands.

When Toby uses the word ' _undeniably_ ' too often then Sam knows that there's an itch in the other man's hands for a blank space of wall and a cigar tinted kiss.

Sam will blink a cautious ' _grandeur_ ' in the other man's direction and it's his way of saying - " _let's get the hell out of here_ ".

But then... they don't talk much during sex, fingernails digging the words on a stubbled jaw so that silence becomes their language. There’s the mix of tongues and sweat that neither of them ever wants to wash off. They flare on each other, all words but no sound, ( _just hush-hush, they’ll hear you_ ) in a way that they can deny later in lighter mornings and brighter sunlight.

\-- The glittered dialect of the sun on Toby’s bare and evenly rising chest never fails to make him sigh a little.

Days later and they’ve forged a new love (argument) with sharpened words. They one up each other in vocabulary, just trying to prove which of the writers is smarter - when really they’re telling the other one _‘I love nothing more than_ –

"You can’t say that." He flings a hand, the words and the papers and the emotion flying from his fingertips with a high pitched tone that shatters their shared silence. "We can’t. It’s hypocritical."

Toby knows, squinting into the insight, that whenever Sam uses the word '’ _hypocritical_ " it’s because he’s feeling guilty about their relationship. Or too dependent on the older man. It’s a word dance that takes long and exhausting days of step learning to figure out.

They fight while they write, but sex is never a vocal disagreement. It’s hands and heat and a flush and flash (bang) of something unspoken, resoundingly loud in its reticence. They agree, lips pressing skin that smells of Sunday almonds, that they’ll never fight each other again.

\-- They break their promises in horrendous slamming sounds, fingers crashing thunder on keyboards or pens tapping hard on yellow paper.


End file.
